is already a bit ahead of the curve - with a new "outage tracker" already online. City Light's Scott Thomsen walked us through it: Go to the SCL home page at seattle.gov/li..."/>

Powerless? Seattle City Light connects you with new outage tracker

Tomorrow, the entire City of Seattle website is scheduled to launch a new look, “making services more accessible,” according to the mayor’s office. Today, Seattle City Light> is already a bit ahead of the curve – with a new “outage tracker” already online. City Light’s Scott Thomsen walked us through it: Go to the SCL home page at seattle.gov/light – and note the System Status box in the right sidebar:

Caveat, this will look different after tomorrow’s redesign launches – but the same info will be available in this order, toward the top of the page. If there’s an outage, a click in the box will take you to a map, where the outage will be marked in red (the bigger the outage, the bigger the mark, but as you zoom in on the map, you’ll get to something like this) – a click on the red brings up a bubble with outage basics:

The biggest thing, Thomsen explains, is that this will be updated every 15 minutes, and it will automatically get new information from what City Light workers are learning from callers and crew members. Previously, the utility used a seldom-used webpage that sometimes displayed outage information – and more often didn’t – Thomsen explains that it wasn’t linked into outage-related info the way this new one is. In addition, the old system wouldn’t be called into action for small outages; this one will show outages of any size. You still need to call and report them, he emphasizes – City Light does not yet have the technology to automatically detect them. But the new software enabling the online “system status” will enable more features around next February, Thomsen adds – perhaps even phone notifications when the outage at your house is over.

10 Replies to "Powerless? Seattle City Light connects you with new outage tracker"

  • DOC October 12, 2010 (4:43 pm)

    But if your power is out, how do you use the online tracker? And if your power is out, wouldn’t you already know about it, and not need the tracker? Logic seems that if you can access the tracker, you have power and therefore do not need to access the tracker. Very interesting :)

  • toddinwestwood October 12, 2010 (4:45 pm)

    soooo, how do I check this web page when my power is out? My wifi runs on 110.

    This is a waste of time and money.

    • WSB October 12, 2010 (5:42 pm)

      So many people have smart phones now, our usage actually goes up, not down, even when there’s a sizable outage.

  • Carson October 12, 2010 (4:58 pm)

    My smartphone works just fine with or without City Light power, unless the cell tower is down as well….besides, knowing how easy the site works I could call a friend and ask them to check on it easily as well. Lots of work arounds in an emergency guys.

  • jay October 12, 2010 (5:01 pm)

    I also thought of the standard “but if I don’t have power how am I supposed to view a webpage” joke, but the reality is that a good portion of the population actually does use a device (iphone, battery powered laptops, etc) that can access the web even during an outage.

  • k2 October 12, 2010 (5:21 pm)

    I love how people think you need a landline and power to check websites! Welcome to the world in your hands…it’s called technology…wake up and get off WIFI…go 4G.

    sent from my non-iPhone

  • toddinwestwood October 12, 2010 (5:25 pm)

    What is this 4G or smart phone you speak of?

  • Westie October 12, 2010 (6:37 pm)

    Might also be helpful to check on neighbors or family if you hear rumors of an outage when you’re at work, away from home. Let’s not be so quick to by cynical, the city is trying to help keep us informed here. Also don’t forget, and those of you that work for a large, complex organization know this already, that efforts like this are results of teams of real people working together, their efforts are not perfect, nor are they. Nor are any of us.

    • WSB October 12, 2010 (6:41 pm)

      This is actually big progress from four years ago, during the mega-outage that pointed us in the news direction. Those who were here will remember, at least in some parts of WS, being out for days. (We lost power for four days.) Though our ‘readership’ was still fairly small, we were getting notes from folks who, every day when they went to work, wondered if their power had come back on while they were away. It was winter, so it got dark early, and when it was dark enough to tell the difference, we were literally driving local neighborhoods looking for signs if power was back on, so we could publish updates. Though smart phones weren’t really around back then, some people who couldn’t check from an office or friend’s computer were calling family members out of town and having them read news from sites like ours. City Light admits there’s a lot more it would like to do, but this is an improvement from the way outage information had previously been disseminated, whether to the media or to customers – TR

  • coffee October 12, 2010 (6:52 pm)

    My first thought was cynical, but then I would be able to use my smart phone, (which I just got and have not a clue how to use yet) to update my elderly neighbors who do not have a computer, or even a cell phone. I agree this will be a helpful site, as long as it is fairly accurate with its reporting. And if we have a winter like they are prediciting, this could be just in time.

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